An analysis of Iran urban systems during the period of 1335 (1956) to 1385 (2006)

Urban system is the spacial manifestation of political economy and the land management method of a country. The manner of distribution and the level of balance of the cities’ population get clearer by examining the urban system. The urban system of Iran has tended to chain pattern from traditional galaxy pattern before 1300 (1921) because of centralization of facilities and services in big cities. This pattern has distracted the logical relationships among small, medium and big cities and led to disorder in urban system. This study aims at identifying the level of balance in Iran urban system during the period of 1335 to 1385. The study is of descriptive-analytic methodology and concentrates on examining models. The statistical community includes all cities of Iran in 5 census periods. The findings of current study shows that urban system is becoming more balanced with regard to the indices of concentration coefficient, rank-size, primate city, and entropy index but with regard to Ginny Coefficient and population distribution in urban classes there has been an imbalance compared to the situation n 1335. In fact, on the basis of Lorenz curve, Iran cities have been near the normal line in 1335 but got away from this line in 1385. This is because of the increase in number of small cities with little of population and increase in the population of big cities in Iran. To reach a balance in urban system in Iran the strategies of decentralization of metropolises and boosting small and medium cities are suggested.